TILDEN – More housing for teachers and more classroom space for students is in the works at McMullen Independent School District.

Due to the increase in oil production activity in McMullen County, finding housing is a struggle, but finding housing that fits a teacher’s salary and is large enough for a family is nearly impossible. Over the last few years, the district has built housing for several of its employees and is currently taking steps to add a four-plex to the district’s housing plan.

Superintendent Dave Underwood said the district looked into making the upcoming housing unit a six-plex, but having six dwellings in a single unit changes the requirements and a four-plex was a better option for the district.

Each dwelling within the proposed four-plex is roughly 1,500 square feet in size. Two of them have two bedrooms, and the other two have three bedrooms.

Albert Soto, project architect with Lamar Womack and Associates Architects, presented the blueprints for the four-plex to the school board on Sept. 19. The blueprints showed a two-story building with two bathrooms in the three-bedroom units and one bathroom in the two-bedroom units. But, the board opted to add an additional bathroom to the two-bedroom ones and knock out some of the extra closet space instead.

Soto said the four-plex will be built about one foot off the ground with fire walls between each unit.

Soto said the goal is to go out for bids on the project within the next two or three weeks.

The four-plex isn’t the only housing unit McMullen ISD is working on; Underwood said the paperwork has been signed for renovating Bubba Miller’s house on Lowe Street which is currently occupied by a teacher. He also said the district is looking into paving the road behind the school.

“With the rain, we get three-tenths of an inch every day, and everything is a slop,” Underwood said.

As for classroom space, the fine arts extension is currently underway, and the board looked at different flooring options. During their flooring discussion, it was noted that the price difference between flooring options was $150,000, but they decided the extra cost was worth it since the thicker option was more durable and came with a 20-year warranty.